


Pattern Recognition

by missmollyetc



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:32:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmollyetc/pseuds/missmollyetc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sweater was new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pattern Recognition

**Author's Note:**

> I am not avoiding my other writing. Shut up.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fanfic100](http://missmollyetc.livejournal.com/tag/fanfic100), [numb3rs](http://missmollyetc.livejournal.com/tag/numb3rs)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **NUMB3RS FIC: Pattern Recognition (1/1)** _

Title: Pattern Recognition

Character: Charlie Eppes, Numb3rs

Rating: G

Summary: The sweater was new.

Prompt: 011: Red

Author's Notes: I am not avoiding my other writing. Shut up.

Author's Notes (2): To read the other Fanfic100 stories, go here: [Table of Contents](http://www.livejournal.com/users/missmollyetc/180652.html)

Disclaimer: I have nothing (apparently, not even my sanity). Numb3rs is the product of CBS and the Scott Brothers, etc., etc., and I make nothing from this while they rake in the millions. Which is how I like it. In other words? I. Made. It. Up.

 

 

After Larry had made his exit, complete with one-liner, Dad tipped the last of his beer down his throat and then rose from the couch with a heavy sigh. Charlie tilted his chin in the direction of his father's retreating back, keeping his eyes firmly on the equation taking shape on his pad of paper.

"Hey Dad," Don called. "Where're you going?"

Charlie looked up. Don hadn't gotten up, but his head lolled on the back of the easy chair, chest arching up as he spoke. He braced himself with both feet on the floor. His red sweater pulled tight at the shoulders.

"My office," Dad shouted from the depths of the house.

Charlie looked down at his paper again.

"I've still got that proposal to work on for next Tuesday," Dad said.

Don settled back into the easy chair with a sigh. His legs stretched out, crossing at the ankle beneath the coffee table. He scratched the side of his neck and the sleeve of his sweater fell further down his arm.

Charlie wasn't an obsessive person. He didn't need to eat white food, or count all the paperclips in his desk three times or wear only green on Thursdays, all of which Larry had succumbed to at certain points in his life. Charlie simply noticed…patterns.

The red sweater Don wore was a _clear_ break with pattern.

Don wore black, sometimes a blue t-shirt, but mostly black. At work, he often wore a white button down and a tie that made him look very uncomfortable. He never wore red.

Charlie wore red, what's more, Charlie wore _that_ red. That particular red sweater, to be exact. Only he put a white undershirt with it, and he didn't…fill it out in quite the same manner as Don.

He coughed and flexed his bicep, subtly of course. Nothing brought out the annoying older brother better than Charlie doing something vaguely embarrassing like comparing musculature. Don was an athlete, after all--a former athlete and current federal agent. You had to be in shape for that sort of work.

He drew a line down the margin on the paper and slashed three parallel lines along the mark. Don was in shape, maybe a little thicker around the middle than he'd been in college, but…

Charlie licked his lips and tucked a stray bit of hair behind his ear. Across from him, Don sighed again and rested the mouth of his bottle against his lower lip. He drummed his fingers against the label.

His legs stretched out in from of him, thin and strong, runners' legs. Charlie bent his head over the pad of paper, but his eyes followed the path of Don's shin to his knee and then his thigh to his trim waist. The soft bundle of Don's package lay below his fly, and Charlie immediately looked down at the mess he'd made of his paper.

Ink smeared across his equations. He'd let the pen leak out. He grimaced and capped it. Don raised an eyebrow at the small click. He cocked his head, grinning in the funny, squinty way he had.

"Something up, buddy?" he asked, and Charlie shook his head hard.

"N--no," he said. "I just…"

He gestured with the pen toward Don and flicked the end to the ceiling. Don's smile dimmed.

"What?" he asked, and the rumble in his voice spoke of impending concern.

"You're, uh," Charlie swallowed, "you're wearing my sweater."

Don's grin returned and widened. His legs uncrossed, and Charlie braced himself to be loomed over, but Don only slouched lower in the easy chair. His knees touched either corner of the seat cushion while the rest of his body angled towards the couch.

"I know," he said.

 

End.


End file.
